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The ENEMIES Project by Nelson Guda — Kickstarter

My friend Nelson Guda is a peace geek. He went to Africa, where he met with and photographed people who were formerly enemies, like Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda, now living together in peace.

How do people find peace after violence, even genocide? This is a great question to ask and collect answers in the form of photos and stories from people who’ve been through it.

Nelson would like to exhibit his photos at the United Nations headquarters as well as in various capitals around the world, and also publish a book of photos with the stories they go with.

This is not crazy, because Nelson is one smart guy. Not only does he have a Ph.D., but he’s already exhibited his photography in the U.S. Senate Building. He manifests.

Here’s what Nelson says:

Why on earth would anyone do this, and how do you know I will finish it?

I can’t explain why I need to take on big projects like this. Maybe the simplest explanation is that I am an artist and have a tendency to work to obsession. In my last major project about roadless forest lands in the U.S., I photographed National Forests across the country. As a part of this project I designed and built a website that dynamically maps all the roadless lands in the country. At the time there weren’t any good ways to quickly map and query that much data on a website, so I taught myself how to program and designed a system to do it. The site is still up – it is called Roadlessland.org. In former lives I have gotten a PhD and helped start an institute at a major university. Will I finish this project? Not counting time, I have already invested a lot of my own money into ENEMIES. But even more importantly I think this is an important thing to do. In my mind I can’t not finish it.

You can help Nelson fund his goal of $20,000 in 44 days by pledging as little as $1.

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